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The Novartis data manipulation scandal got even more interesting this week. Top lawmakers skewered Mylan and Teva for allegedly trying to "stonewall" an investigation into whether they and Heritage Pharmaceuticals were fixing prices on generic drugs. If lung cancer wasn't enough of a reason to avoid cigarettes, the FDA thinks adding graphic images to cigarette packs will change that. And for all the backlash against "Medicare for All," employers might actually like it.
(Are there any stories we should be chasing? Email tips, ideas, suggestions to CNBC Health Editor Dawn Kopecki at dawn.kopecki@nbcuni.com.)
| | Novartis fires top scientists allegedly over data manipulation | The plot thickens. A week after the FDA threatened to take criminal action against Novartis for knowingly using manipulated data in its application for its new gene therapy, the Swiss drug giant "exited" (Novartis's PR-speak for "fired") two top scientists at its AveXis unit. They also happen to be brothers. A person familiar with the ordeal tells me they are among a handful of scientists departing in connection with the data manipulation. So is that it? Probably not. Drug industry investors, in conversations this week, say they expect there's another shoe to drop for CEO Vas Narasimhan.
-Meg Tirrell | | | | Mylan and Teva take heat from Bernie Sanders, Elijah Cummings | Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight, this week accused Mylan, Teva Pharmaceutical and privately-held Heritage Pharmaceuticals of "apparent efforts to stonewall" an investigation on generic drug prices launched back in 2014. Using documents obtained from a lawsuit filed by 44 states in May, the lawmakers concluded that the pharmaceutical companies "obstructed" the 5-year-old congressional inquiry. Mylan denied the accusations and Teva couldn't be reached for comment.
-Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | | | | Don't look now, but employers are kind of into "Medicare for All" | Health benefits costs invariably defy the old adage of what goes up must come down. Next year's no different. But the big anomaly that caught my attention in this year's National Business Group on Health survey: large employers seem more open to letting the government do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to the really high health costs, like breakthrough drugs with seven-figure prices. They even support Medicare for All when it comes to older workers.
-Bertha Coombs | | | | FDA tries to require graphic warnings on cigarette packs — again | Pictures of feet with amputated toes, damaged lungs and other gruesome images may be featured on cigarette packs and advertisements to warn consumers of the dangers of smoking. The FDA proposed 13 graphic warning labels this week, a decade after Congress instructed the agency to do so. Tobacco companies successfully challenged the agency's first attempt in court. Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said the FDA learned from that experience and thinks this rule will hold up.
-Angelica LaVito | | | | These health-tech veterans want to avert the next Theranos | Former executives from Color Genomics and 23andMe are teaming up to form a new consulting firm, called MDisrupt, which aims to avert the next Theranos before it gets funded. The idea is to put early stage med-tech companies through a new kind of due diligence, where they're vetted for their commitment to health privacy, their regulatory compliance and whether the economic model works. "We are hoping to help the good start-ups move faster and get recognition for their work while we also root out the bad ones," the firm's cofounder Ruby Gadelrab told me.
-Christina Farr | | CNBC Evolve: Chicago
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